


Screaming Internally

by PiscesDragon



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Canon Compliant, I'm new and horrible at tags, M/M, SHEITH - Freeform, Season8 was a hellscape, The paladins ship sheith and are bitter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-06
Updated: 2019-03-06
Packaged: 2019-11-12 16:23:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18014243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PiscesDragon/pseuds/PiscesDragon
Summary: Shiro marries Curtis - and the rest of the paladins have a discussion about what the hell is happening and whether they really have ended up in the wrong universe.Or: Sometimes your friends make poor decisions, and you just have to sit around and watch. And judge them for it.





	Screaming Internally

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my first time writing fan fiction in 15 years! I was so disappointed in Season 8 and the horrible characterizations, it actually inspired me to start writing again. 
> 
> Fanfic as therapy is definitely a thing.
> 
> Also HUGE thanks to  
> museaway for taking the time to beta read this for me! And for writing such AMAZING stories that helped inspire me!

 

“Well, we finally found something that Keith can’t save Shiro from,” Pidge said sarcastically. She  frowned as she watched Keith's back and mop of black hair, stark against the white tux, as he bolted through the double doors and escaped the ballroom. The noise level had picked up since they'd cut the cake and the DJ started, and with Keith's sudden exit, the remaining paladins were finally left with a corner of privacy to chat about the day’s events.

“What’s that?” Hunk asked.

“Himself.”

At that three pairs of eyes slid across the room to where Shiro stood with his new husband. They held hands as they chatted easily with crew members, smiling shyly at each other now and then.  Four months of dating and Shiro had popped the question. Really, Pidge thought, it had more to do with a few months of getting some on the regular. After years of enforced celibacy, she was convinced the change had him thinking with the wrong part of his body when it came to life decisions. She wished for the millionth time that he had taken advantage of the Garrison counseling program. They all had - well, except Keith of course, who she was fairly sure refused to even talk to himself about any deep-seated personal issues he needed to work through. Pidge was pretty sure of all of them, Shiro could have used it the most, but every time one of them brought it up, he did nothing but talk about how busy he was. He made it sound as if it was only a matter of finding the time, and if he could just do that he would love nothing more than to have a discussion with a stranger about his time as champion being forced to fight for his life, their life-and-death battles with Voltron, or better yet — his actual death. They were all well aware it was bullshit. Shiro was great at forcing other people to recognize their failures and improve on their faults, but he was shit when it came to dealing with himself.

“He looks happy…” Hunk said, forever the peacekeeper.

“I can’t help feeling like we ended up in the wrong reality,” Pidge said. “This just seems wrong.”

“Oh, it’s not just you,” said Lance, shaking his head slightly. He knew better than anyone just how much had been sacrificed to restore their reality - and having to watch his friend and hero make what he knew in his heart was a mistake, while another of his friends was obviously heartbroken, made Lance think that something had gone wrong SOMEWHERE. This couldn’t possibly be what Allura would have wanted or what the universe had planned for them. Not after everything Shiro and Keith had done and sacrificed in order to save it in the first place. “I was with Keith when Shiro told us he was going to pop the question. After Shiro left, Keith  _ cried _ . Keith! Have you ever seen Keith cry in all the time you’ve known him? That was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen IN MY LIFE, guys. And we have  _ seen  _ some shit. I was traumatized…”

Lance shuddered and then took a large gulp of his drink, as if trying to chase away the memory. He didn’t mention the fact that after Keith had stopped sobbing on his shoulder, he had completely destroyed his entire room and everything in it. That was the day Lance had gotten a first-hand look at a Galra rage-fit, which had really been a lot like those old Earth cartoons with the Tasmanian devil that moved like a blur and annihilated everything in its path. Lance had stayed out of the way until Keith wore himself out, left him to sleep, and they had both pretended the event never happened.

Hunk still seemed determined to find a positive somewhere in the situation. “Shiro has been through a lot,” he said quietly. “It’s not really our place to question what he wants.”

“Does he really though?” Pidge asked. “This was all pretty quick. If I didn’t know any better, I would think Haggar came back and possessed him again.”

Hunk gave her a wide-eyed look. 

“Seriously, the freaking clone’s behavior was less out of character than this,” she continued with eyes narrowed and focused on Shiro across the room, as if simply concentrating hard enough would allow her to decipher what was going on in his brain. “Maybe his new arm is corrupted. Maybe it’s causing his brain to short circuit somehow.”

“I mean, I guess that’s possible?” Hunk relented. “I’m pretty sure we would have seen other signs though if there was an issue with his tech…”

“There’s definitely a problem with his brain,” stated Lance, as if there could be no room for argument. “I mean, how do you go through everything he went through with Keith and then end up with somebody like Curtis? Remember when Shiro was - well, I don’t want to say  _ dead _ , but trapped in the Black Lion? And Keith told us about how he just, like really needed him when we got separated in that battle and he flat-out  _ projected  _ himself into the astral plane to get to Shiro? Who freaking does that? How is that even possible?”

Hunk nodded his head in thought. “That is some cosmic level mental connection voodoo.”

“There’s certainly no scientific explanation for that,” Pidge said, removing her glasses to clean the lenses with the bottom of her jacket. “That goes way past our abilities when we would connect with our lions  — and definitely our threads to each other through the lions’ connections.”

“God, remember that story Shiro told us  — about when he was fighting Sendak during the Earth battle?” Hunk said, obviously starting to enjoy all of the reminiscing about their friends. He generally tried to avoid gossip, but Hunk couldn’t help but enjoy spending time telling stories about their ‘glory days’ as Voltron paladins. It had only been a year and a half since the lions flew away and left them, but in some ways it felt like a lifetime ago.

“Oh, you mean when Shiro was at Sendak’s mercy and thought he was going to die,” Pidge snarked, “and Keith came flying out of the Black Lion like  — and I’m quoting Shiro here  — an ‘avenging angel’ to save him? I mean, really? I love you guys, but I just can’t imagine referring to you that way. For any reason. Even if you are in the middle of saving my butt.”

“I always did think that was a weird way to describe it,” Hunk said. “But then I always kind of thought Shiro had a thing for Keith.”

“RIGHT?” Pidge exclaimed. “The first six months we were in the castle, I really thought they were together and sharing a room. Shiro was always coming out of Keith’s, and I’m not sure I ever saw them not in the same place. And Shiro always spent so much time touching and hanging all over him like a middle school girl with a crush. It doesn’t seem possible that we could have been so wrong.”

“Which does seem like a viable argument for the wrong-universe theory,” Hunk concluded.

“I feel you. When... “ It was still so hard for Lance to say her name. “Allura told me about how she watched Keith bring Shiro back from the brink of death with the power of his love, this is not exactly the way I saw this whole thing going, you know?” Lance waved vaguely toward the newlyweds.

Unfortunately, Shiro had picked that exact moment to glance over at them and obviously misinterpreted the movement as a friendly wave from Lance signaling him to come over and chat. Shiro detached his hand from Curtis’ with a quick word and walked toward them with a friendly smile, and the trio watched as the crowd parted for his broad shoulders like the Red Sea. Lance couldn’t help but be a little jealous of the guy  — it must be nice to be so built that people just MOVE for you, like a god among men. He had long since accepted that no matter what he did, he was meant to be lanky, but that didn’t mean there weren’t times that “damn, Shiro” floated through his brain when he had to look at his friend. He may be a red-blooded, heterosexual man, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t recognize amazing genes in human form. Floating robot arm or not, he defied ANY human being with a pair of eyes and comfortable with their own sexuality to honestly say Shiro wasn’t a prime human example of HOT. Lance couldn’t blame Keith for his inability to move on  — if anything, he admired Keith’s restraint for being within arm’s reach of Shiro for so many years and keeping his hands to himself. Now that he really thought about it, Lance thought Keith could probably crack a walnut with his self-restraint alone. 

“Wait for it...” Pidge muttered as they watched Shiro make his way closer to them. Shiro’s grin faded like the moon during an eclipse the closer he got, as he looked around to the side and behind their table and noticed that someone was missing from their little group. By the time he finally reached them, his grin had turned into a tiny frown.

“Hey guys,” he greeted them, eyes still roaming the room. “Where’s Keith?”

“Typical,” Pidge coughed under her breath, covering by pretending to choke on her drink.

“Oh, um, he wasn’t feeling well,” Hunk said, trying to come up with a good reason why the best man would leave his friend’s wedding early.

“Yeah,” Pidge said, looking at Shiro with her mouth in a tight line and unable to keep the sarcasm out of her voice, “I think he was sick to his stomach.”

Lance choked on his drink, barely able contain his reaction. ‘Damn, Pidge,’ he thought.  Well, she was nothing if not honest.

“Really? He didn’t say anything earlier...”

“He just didn’t want to worry you,” Hunk said. “He knew how important today was. He didn’t want to ruin anything with his, uh...feeling bad.”

“I hope he’s ok.  I’ll try to get a message to him later,” Shiro said. “You guys will check on him, right? You know Keith will never speak up when he needs something.”

“Don’t we know it. I think that’s how we got here,” Pidge deadpanned, and Shiro gave her a slightly puzzled look. Luckily for her, he was too distracted with his own feelings about the day to question her snark.

“Well, I guess that means we won’t have a best man’s speech,” Shiro said, looking dejected but obviously willing to overlook the minor disappointment.

“I got you, man!” said Lance, pointing at Shiro with two finger guns and a grin. “You want me to give it? I can totally do it.”

“Lance, that would be...” Shiro smiled. “Thanks, man.”

“Anything for our fearless leader!”

“Ha,” Shiro laughed, suddenly seeming nervous. He reached up and rubbed his left hand self consciously at the short hair at the back of his head.

“Why do I get the feeling there’s something you’re not telling us,” Pidge said, eyes narrowed again. ‘If only Shiro’s brain were as simple to decode as a program’ she thought. ‘What I wouldn’t give to debug his freaking system…’

“Well, uh,” Shiro stammered. He was quiet for a moment, then quickly pulled out the empty chair Keith had left and sat down with a thump. Hunk, Lance, and Pidge waited for the other shoe to drop. “I was going to wait until all this was over to say anything, but I guess you all should be the first to know. I won’t be anybody’s leader for much longer. I’m retiring.”

No one moved or breathed for a full minute. Then Hunk’s mouth dropped open, Lance gasped, and Pidge was unable to stop herself from word vomiting. “What. The. Quiznak.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Hunk said. “Tell me you’re kidding.”

“WHY?” Lance exclaimed.

“I don’t know, guys,” Shiro replied, suddenly fidgeting with a fork on the table nervously. “I guess I’m just… tired. Things have finally settled down  — the Coalition doesn’t need me as much anymore. Everything has become more about diplomatic missions instead of fighting  — which is great  — but I never had any desire to go into politics. And that’s more and more what I’m getting pushed into. It’s aggravating. I don’t think I’m cut out for fighting when you can only do it the long way, with words.”

“You sound like Keith,” Hunk said with a small smile.

“Yeah, that’s why he’s bailed more often than not on the conferences, even when his presence as the former Voltron leader was directly requested,” Shiro sighed, his exasperation at his best friend very apparent.

“I’d have to agree,” Pidge smirked, knowing full well that Keith’s avoidance had more to do with Shiro than his dislike of diplomacy. ”Keith’s lack of patience with stupidity probably has a lot to do with that.”

Hunk hid his smile behind his glass at the double meaning, taking a drink to avoid any comments he might be tempted to add. It was Shiro’s wedding day. This was not the time to open the door on how blind he’d been to Keith’s feelings. And it wasn’t like Keith had gone out of his way to take the risk and make them clear on his own, however obvious it seemed to them that he might have been.  "As much as Pidge and Lance wanted to blame this situation on Shiro, Hunk couldn't help feel it wasn't entirely his fault -- Keith was just as stubborn, and they had both made bad decisions." He decided to help them refocus before Shiro caught on to his friends’ bitterness. “You’re still going to stay on with the Garrison somehow though, right?”

Shiro shook his head. “I’m done,” he said simply.

“No way,” Pidge said, shocked. “What are you going to do with yourself? I’ve never known you to sit still for more than five minutes.”

“You are kind of like an overgrown toddler,” Hunk added with a laugh. “Not to mention the only grown person I’ve ever seen choose to sit criss-cross-applesauce on the floor for fun.”

Lance barked out a laugh. “Oh my God, remember that time he did that in the common area, and Keith went off, came back and handed him a juice box just completely stone-faced? I almost peed myself.”

The former paladins shared a quiet laugh, taking a tic to remember one of the many moments that had bonded them together as friends.

“So what are you going to do now?” Hunk asked.

“I don’t really know yet,” Shiro answered with a shrug. “We’re thinking about getting a cat…”

“Shiro!” Lance clapped his hands together with glee, his dark eyes shining like he just realized all of his dreams had come true. “Are you going to be Curt’s TROPHY HUSBAND now?!”

Pidge had chosen that unfortunate moment to take a large sip of her drink, and proceeded to spit it out as she tried not to laugh. She luckily had the presence of mind to turn her head sideways, and it hit the floor instead of spraying her friends in the face. It didn’t save Shiro from the cackling that broke out of her mouth once it was empty. “Oh my God, YOU ARE!” she laughed loudly, watching the blush bloom across Shiro’s face and his scar turn bright red.

Hunk’s face looked like he was trying desperately to process this information while simultaneously solving multidimensional equations in his head. He started looking around, eyes narrowed like he was looking for critical details in the room to help him.

“What are you doing?” Lance asked, noticing his friend’s perplexed expression.

“How would we know if we’re in the wrong reality?” Hunk asked. “Do you think it’s like in that old movie? I’m trying to see if I can find an error in the code, like maybe there’s a shimmer somewhere in the Matrix to let us know we don’t really belong here…”

“Good luck with that,” said Pidge flatly. 

Shiro, not following the change in conversation at all but relieved to be out of the crosshairs, decided it was a good opportunity to escape. He stood up from the table quickly, looking across the room to where Curtis seemed to be trapped in a conversation with a couple of older women from his family. “Well, I guess I’d better get back to making the rounds. It looks like Curtis needs rescuing.”

“Huh.” Shiro glanced at Pidge, who suddenly had the look on her face for when she solved a really complex problem, but didn’t get the answer she expected. That happened so rarely, Shiro couldn’t help but be intrigued with what she was thinking about.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“Oh, nothing,” she said, still looking at him very seriously with her head cocked slightly to the side. “Nothing to worry about. You’d better go save your husband  — it doesn’t look like anyone else is going to.”

Curtis was now looking around the room with a somewhat desperate expression. When he caught sight of Shiro, his face began making the universal “save me” signal. “Ok, well I’ll see you guys later!” Shiro took off, moving a little too quickly through the people milling about the room to get to his husband. When Shiro reached him, Curtis gave him a wide, relieved smile as Shiro grabbed his hand and pulled away him away with an apology to the older women that had been chatting him up.

“Well, that explains it, I think,” Pidge said, her mouth turned down into a frown making her face look like she smelled something horrible. Lance and Hunk turned to her with a bewildered look, waiting for her to continue and reveal the mystery.

“I think we all underestimated Shiro’s hero complex.”

“What?” asked Hunk, eyebrows draw together in confusion.

“Shiro likes to be the one playing the savior,” she explained, as if it should have been clear to them all along. “Keith played this all wrong. He’s been the one saving Shiro for the last...I don’t even know how many years. I’d bet my thermostatic laser that Shiro’s pride couldn’t handle it. I think subconsciously he couldn’t process the thought of being with someone who could take care of themselves  — who didn’t  _ need _ him.”

“So you’re saying that if Keith had been willing to be the damsel in distress, this could have all gone differently?” Hunk suggested.

“Still feels like we got thrown into the wrong timeline,” Lance supplied with a grimace.

“I’m just saying sometimes feelings are dumb and people are stupid,” Pidge stated matter of factly. “Or people are dumb and feelings are stupid. I don’t know. What I do know is that I need another drink.”

She stood up and headed over toward the bar, where her brother seemed to be lining up multi-colored shots with a couple of the MFE pilots. Hunk and Lance gave each other a knowing look; she wasn’t going to be coming back any time soon.

“So you’re going to have to give the speech for Shiro in a little bit,” Hunk said, looking carefully at Lance. “I don’t envy you, man. Any idea what you’re going to say?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” said Lance with a grin and a wink. “I’m just going to pretend Curtis is Keith  — then generalize, and run with it!”

Hunk blinked slowly once before dropping his face straight into the palm of his right hand. It seemed that this weird night was about to get worse. There was no way that this could possibly go well. 

He looked up, spotting the chair that Keith had left empty, and shook his head sadly. Days like this really made Hunk wish that Allura was there. She would have known what to say to Keith, to help him through his heartbreak. Or at the very least, she certainly would have been a better candidate to give the speech for Shiro in his place. He had never realized what a calming presence she was in their little group, until she was gone. Now Hunk was left to try to hold the team together. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time, but he had a feeling that after today the job was going to get a lot harder, particularly when it came to their leader. Keith always did have a tendency to run away when things got painful on a personal level, and Shiro’s marriage had obviously cut him deeper than any wound he could have received in battle. 

Hunk didn’t really know what happened between their two leaders, and he couldn’t help but wonder if Keith had even told Shiro how he felt. Their relationship had always been a little...dramatic, to say the least. None of that really mattered at this point though, not really. Shiro was now a married man, and Hunk was happy for him. Shiro had been through a lot, maybe more than the rest of them combined, and he deserved to be happy. Hunk also knew that Curtis was a good guy and that he would do everything he could to be the man Shiro needed. All they could do now was support him, and each other, and hope that the rest of them would be able to find their own happiness eventually.

 


End file.
